The Birdcage

by Marcia Willett

  Sitting in the wing-backed chair, revelling in the warmth of the morning sunshine, Felix wondered why it should be impossible to break down Piers’ reserve. Why had he not long since simply battered down that wall, built out of old loyalties and resentment and fear, which stood between them? Yet the thought of attempting it appalled him: what harm might it do?

  Was his love for Piers strong enough to sustain them both through the breaking-down process? How often it had been the same with Marina: she, shut up in her silence, pinched with reproach; he, trying to penetrate the barrier with words? Felix was gripped with helplessness, thinking of past failure.

  Marina’s pride in her son becomes the mainspring of her life: she is determined that he shall be best, first, a genius. Slowly, as he grows, all her passion is finally directed to this end; Piers shall not fail her as Felix has failed her. As for Piers – torn between his love for both of them, made increasingly aware of his mother’s unhappiness – he tries to sow harmony, to repair the damage as best he can. Marina’s claim on their son is the stronger; she sees more of him, deals with his small day-to-day needs – and she is upheld by her self-righteous sense of injustice. Felix continues to be cast into the role of sinner and the knowledge of his weakness undermines his confidence in his dealings with his son. It is only after Piers’ marriage that some touch of grace – a softening that allows Felix to draw closer to her – gradually releases Marina from the iron grip of resentment. Their last years together are overshadowed by the cancer which, to him, seems like some final physical manifestation of that banked-down, lifelong jealousy that has so destroyed her peace: yet during her illness he is able to minister to her, touched by her bravery, able to demonstrate his love which, at last, moved by his affection and grateful for his care, she is able to accept.

  Once Marina dies, and he moves back to his flat in Dunster, Sunday afternoon tea and supper at Michaelgarth become a weekly ritual. He suspects that this is his son’s way of trying to repay him for abdicating so cheerfully and he goes along readily with it, knowing that it eases Piers’ sense of guilt. Piers finds it difficult to believe that his father no longer wishes to stay at Michaelgarth and suspects that Felix simply feels selfish at occupying so much space whilst Piers and his family manage in their much smaller cottage just outside Porlock, where his parents began their married life.

  Standing together by the fire in the study at Michaelgarth, where Felix spends most of his time now that he is alone, he tries to explain his reasons for deciding to move back to Dunster.

  ‘After all, Michaelgarth’s not even mine,’ he says – and seeing Piers’ expression change to wariness, even hurt, he hurries on, ‘Michaelgarth belongs to you now, which is how it should be. You know that the estate belonged to your mother’s family, not mine, which is why she left it to you and not to me. She grew up here, just as you did, and I think that it’s right that David should grow up here in his turn. Anyway,’ he tries for a lighter touch, ‘it’s too big for one old boy on his own.’

  ‘Nonsense, you’re barely sixty,’ Piers dismisses his father’s age with a shake of his head, ‘not that we wouldn’t love it, of course.’ He sounds a touch stiff in his effort to suppress an upsurge of excitement, wanting to be certain that Felix has really made up his mind. ‘But do you really think you’d be happy in that flat? After this?’

  Looking at Piers’ unbelieving expression, Felix almost chuckles aloud. Impossible for Piers to imagine that anyone could prefer the small flat to this rambling, inconvenient old house – but then Piers, like Marina and the whole Frayn clan before him, adores Michaelgarth.

  ‘Of course,’ he adds, ‘the house is big enough for all of us . . .’

  He looks around the room and Felix knows that he is thinking of how they’d lived at Michaelgarth with his grandfather. He racks his brain to think of ways to explain the difference: to say that David Frayn had owned the house, Marina was his daughter, and in those days it was fairly normal for the old to be cared for by the young. Piers’ wife, Sue, runs her own business in Taunton, as well as looking after young David and Piers, and she makes certain that their lives are organized along efficient lines on a tight schedule. Felix feels exhausted simply thinking about her.

  He picks up the heavy, square decanter and the splintered light gleams and flashes as he pours whisky into two tumblers. How often he and David have performed this ritual: how much he missed him in those early, empty years.

  ‘I’d get under Sue’s feet in no time,’ he says cheerfully. ‘Anyway,’ he attempts a little joke, ‘I’m rather looking forward to being back in my bachelor pad after all this time.’

  He bites his lip, regretting the quip; knowing how Marina would have reacted to such a statement.

  Piers looks uncomfortable. ‘Well, there’s always the cottage,’ he says, ‘if you should feel a bit cramped in the flat. I shan’t let it for a bit. It needs a bit of work done on it.’

  ‘But the flat is mine, you see,’ Felix wants to say to him. ‘It’s where I started as a young fellow back from the war and it’s where I want to finish.’

  The sunny flat, above the High Street, welcomes him home as though nothing has changed through the intervening years. When he brings the birdcage back from Bristol, he hangs it in the window as a reminder of the warmth and humour of those happy times with Angel and Lizzie and Pidge.

  ‘Angel wanted you to have it’, Pidge writes. ‘She was very positive about it and I feel I must respect how she felt. Come and see me, Felix . . .’

  And so he goes for the last time to the narrow house near the university. Pidge’s gaze is uncompromising as ever, though the once-sleek, dark cap of hair is now grey. They talk of many things and, at last, she gives him the birdcage.

  ‘Take care of it,’ she says. ‘Angel had this presentiment that you should have it and I promised her, though it’s taken me long enough to get round to it. I miss her so much and though Lizzie dashes down whenever she can, she spends most of her time in London or touring abroad.’

  ‘I’d love to have it,’ he answers, touched and rather shaken to be back in that place where there are so many memories. ‘I can’t tell you what it means to know that she forgave me in the end. I still think it belongs here with you, though. Or with Lizzie.’

  ‘You know Angel!’ She smiles at him, her eyes shadowy with remembrances. ‘She had these strange presentiments and I shouldn’t like to go against her wishes.’ They embrace, each holding the other tightly. ‘Remember the way we were,’ she calls suddenly from the doorway as he goes down the little path, carrying the birdcage.

  Now, staring up at the birdcage, at the little chick with her fluffy wings outstretched, Felix could visualize the small Lizzie showing him her work in her little attic room: the painting and the plasticine family.

  You can be my daddy, if you like.

  Felix grimaced, recalling his helpless distress at this show of pathetic longing and his clumsy attempt to salvage her pride and restore her confidence in his love for her: nothing less than absolute truthfulness had answered.

  The sun had edged beyond the window and his chair was in shadow. Deliberately pushing the memory aside, climbing to his feet, Felix went into his small kitchen to put away the shopping that Piers had collected for him and to prepare his solitary lunch.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Backing the car out of its parking space, weaving carefully through the queue of Saturday morning traffic, Tilda was more than usually aware of Piers sitting silently beside her. He was an a excellent passenger: his foot never reached for an imaginary brake nor did he flinch as she tucked the car tight into the hedge to avoid a motorist who needed more than his share of narrow lane. She swore beneath her breath once or twice – as dilatory tourists braked suddenly to consult a map or, panic-stricken, refused to back their shiny new cars into generously wide passing places – but Piers simply looked amused. He remained relaxed in his seat, his thoughts elsewhere. Only his hands showed a different message: they rested l
ightly on his thighs, curled loosely into fists, except that each thumb was tucked within each fist and held tightly between the knuckles of his fingers. Tilda now knew that this was a sign of inward stress. Trying to gauge his mood, wondering what might have passed between him and Felix, she’d driven out of Dunster, through Alcombe, and was turning left at Headon Cross before she could think of something to say that was neither banal nor intrusive.

  ‘I went round to Cobbles bookshop while you were with Felix,’ she said at last. ‘Adrian thinks he’s tracked down the book you told him about but he wants to double-check with you. I completely forgot to tell you.’

  Piers glanced about him, as if suddenly aware that he was travelling through the countryside with Tilda and not locked in some private world of his own.

  ‘That’s good,’ he answered rather vaguely.

  ‘I said you’d probably pop in.’ Tilda shook her head. ‘I’m hopeless. Utterly brain dead. He’ll be wondering where you are.’

  Piers turned to study his daughter-in-law: her white shirtsleeves were rolled up over bare brown arms, her startlingly blue eyes were fixed on the winding lane ahead: she looked so young and strong but he knew very well how vulnerable she was. As usual he was filled with a brew of conflicting emotions: joy and grief; happiness and pain.

  ‘I’ll phone Adrian when we get home,’ he said. ‘It’s not a problem.’

  ‘That’s OK, then. And don’t forget that I shall be going down to the cottage later on to see if Gemma and Guy have settled in. I’ve asked them over to Michaelgarth tomorrow evening for supper. Remember?’

  Piers, who had completely forgotten that these friends had taken their cottage just outside Porlock for a week, wondered how much Tilda suffered when she was in the company of young couples. Surely it must remind her of all that she’d lost: or perhaps their company and the links they’d had with David comforted her?

  Words filled his mouth, meaningless placebos that seemed to coat his tongue and paralyse it. He sighed with frustration and she glanced sideways at him, smiling as if she recognized his dilemma.

  ‘How was Felix?’

  Piers shifted slightly, shrugging a little. ‘He’s looking pretty good. A bit frail, of course. I said that one of us would pick him up tomorrow at about half-past two. Of course, he wanted to drive himself out to Michaelgarth but I put my foot down. A hip replacement is no small thing at his age.’

  ‘He shouldn’t be driving yet,’ agreed Tilda, ‘but it must be awful to have to be so dependent. Especially for someone like Felix.’

  ‘He certainly enjoys being driven around by you – but then . . .’

  ‘But then?’ Tilda prodded. ‘Then what?’

  He gave a little self-mocking snort. ‘I was going to say that my father has always enjoyed the company of a pretty woman but I can’t really blame him on that score, can I?’

  ‘It’s hardly an uncommon tendency, given your average bloke,’ conceded Tilda. She grinned at him, liking him even more when his sense of fairness conquered his occasional flashes of bitterness. ‘You’re dead spoiled, of course. What with me and Alison dancing attendance on you . . .’

  Piers looked embarrassed but was saved from answering by a sudden wail from the back seat; a pause and then another longer, stronger howling began.

  ‘Shit!’ said Tilda, putting her foot down a little on the accelerator. ‘I was hoping he’d stay asleep until we got home.’ She raised her voice above the now rhythmic shrieking. ‘It’s OK, Jake, we can all hear you.’

  The drive wound away from the lane, across a wild open heath on which gorse bushes and bracken grew, and finally led through an archway into the old garth. High walls connected the house to the stables and barns opposite, so that the ancient cobbles were enclosed. Tilda drove her small hatchback into the open-fronted barn and parked neatly beside the rather battered four-track which belonged to Piers. As she hastily pulled the Tesco carrier bags from the back of the car, Piers lifted his screaming grandson from his bucket seat and rocked him comfortingly. Jake’s fists thrashed the air, his face was puce, and Tilda chuckled as she slammed the hatch and they set off over the cobbles towards the scullery that led into the house.

  ‘You look just like your father when he needed a drink,’ she told Jake.

  Piers held the child closer, smiling, touched as he always was by Tilda’s courage. He knew how much she missed David, how hard she was finding it to accept the bleak fact of his death, yet she kept his presence alive with these little references to him. It wrung his heart when he heard her speaking to Jake of his father as though David were still watching over them, caring about them, but from some remote place. Helplessly watching her struggle, he’d been both glad and grateful when Tilda had accepted his offer of a home whilst she came to terms with her terrible loss.

  Several of his friends – and Alison was the foremost amongst these – had not hesitated to tell him that it was a mistake.

  ‘A young woman and a child,’ she’d said, almost disbelievingly. ‘Can you imagine how they will disrupt your life?’

  ‘We’re talking about Tilda and Jake,’ he’d pointed out. ‘David’s wife and child. They can’t continue to live in their married quarter now. Where would they go? Her mother is about to move north to join her husband, and their house in Taunton is up for sale, and Tilda and her sister have never seen eye to eye. Not that there would be room there for Tilda and Jake. There’s plenty of space here for them and, after all, Michaelgarth will be Jake’s one day.’

  ‘I think it’s a most unselfish gesture.’ A pause. ‘If foolhardy. After all, Tilda has to come to terms with this somehow. She’s only . . . twenty-six, is it? Twenty-seven? She can’t spend the rest of her life at Michaelgarth.’

  Looking at Alison, Piers had recognized signs of that jealousy which had destroyed his mother’s life.

  ‘I’m sure she won’t want to do that,’ he’d answered gently. ‘Nevertheless, it is her home for as long as she and Jake need it.’

  Now, as he passed Jake to Tilda, Piers wondered what she thought about Alison and, as if on cue, a step was heard crossing the flagstones of the scullery and Alison’s voice could be heard calling, ‘Anyone about?’ She must have almost followed them home.

  Bending over her baby, Tilda made a rude face. She knew exactly how Alison felt about her arrival with Jake at Michaelgarth – tiny hints about Piers’ privacy or small indigestible gobbets of advice were handed out at discreet intervals – but, even if this had not been the case, Tilda would have still been concerned about Alison’s growing relationship with Piers. Alison was a very possessive woman and Tilda longed to see Piers free, for once, and in control of his own life.

  Tilda, who had grown up a few miles away across the moor, remembered his mother, Marina, as a distant, unemotional woman, rarely showing her feelings to either her son or grandson, and distinctly offhand with her daughter-in-law. Piers’ wife, Sue, was a strong, capable, managing woman; great fun but with a very low tolerance of boredom. She’d organized Piers and David for more than twenty years with the same good-humoured efficiency with which she’d run her thriving business, selling reproduction country furniture in Taunton. Having seen her son safely through university and into the army, she’d waited until he was happily married before announcing that she was leaving. By this time her company had several outlets on the Continent and now she intended to expand it into the United States whilst her business partner continued to run the British end of the operation. She’d flown back for David’s funeral, received the news of her expected grandchild with a quite remarkable lack of interest, and had hurried away again.

  ‘It’s over, you see,’ she’d explained privately to the numbed Tilda. ‘You mustn’t be hurt. We’ll stay in touch, of course, but my life here has come to an end. Can you understand that? Not especially now, because of David, but long before that. Once he was settled I was able to look to pastures new. I was never a maternal woman, Tilda, but I did my best. The business has been just as m
uch a part of my life as Piers and David, you know, and I’d given them all I had to give. During all those years I never put them second for a moment; my family was always my first priority, but time moves on.’

  Tilda had frowned, swallowing down her grief, trying not to feel hurt. ‘All those years,’ she’d repeated, groping towards some kind of perception of Sue’s feelings. ‘But you seemed so happy. You and Piers and David. And Michaelgarth . . .’

  ‘Well, we were, my dear. Of course we were. But things come to a natural ending, if you see what I mean. Life goes in phases and this phase has finished.’

  ‘Does Piers feel that too?’ Tilda, her hands clasped across her unborn child, wondered if she could really be having this conversation with David’s mother less than half an hour after he had been committed to the earth.

  Sue had glanced across the room at her husband, deep in conversation with the vicar and one of David’s fellow officers. She’d smiled, eyes narrowing in a kind of amused assessment of Piers’ needs. ‘Don’t underestimate your father-in-law, Tilda. He’ll be fine, my dear, simply fine. He’s used to tough women, first Marina and then me, but it’s time he had a break. You’ll find that he’s a very self-sufficient character.’

  Now, as she listened to Alison talking to Piers, Tilda felt she agreed utterly with Sue. Once she’d moved to Michaelgarth she’d had the opportunity to observe Piers at close quarters. Allowing for his grief – and he missed David a great deal – nevertheless it seemed that he managed extraordinarily well without Sue. Once or twice it was as if she could feel him stretching, breathing deeply, so as to fill this space that he was experiencing for the first time in his life. On these occasions she’d feel guilty that she and Jake had arrived to cramp his new-found style. Yet Piers remained very much himself; it was as if she and Jake did not impinge on his freedom.